


A Divine Crawler

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [63]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Worm - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Fantasy, Female Harry Potter, Friendship, Gen, Master of Death Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 10:37:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17181386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: In a world of caped crusaders and villains, all parahuman Eleanor Lily Potter wants to do is go to the zoo.





	A Divine Crawler

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory note of NOT CANON.

September, 1991

 

* * *

 

“Lily,” it is a calm, easy, almost thoughtless answer. This is because in truth the girl, Eleanor Lily Potter, hadn’t given any real thought to it.

 

Most had. Dudley certainly had put more thought into his cape name and cape powers than he ever had anything else in his short fat life. Diddykins had been right out but he’d been quite enamored by Big D for a long time. Of course, that all depended on the powers, Dudley imagined that he’d be strolling down the street as some kind of overly strong behemoth. If he instead started vomiting flames, well then maybe he’d be The Flamethrower or something like that.

 

Most conversations with his skinny, dweeby friend Piers either revolved around Ellie Hunting or else their future as caped crusaders. Well, that or caped villains, Dudley was undecided whether his future of Big D involved ridding the streets of crime as a ward of The Order of the Phoenix in London or else perpetuating the constant state of superhuman gang warfare as a villain in the Death Eaters or some other nefarious clan.

 

Lily, for her own part, had never really felt one way or another about the whole thing.

 

Well, for one thing, if she’d ever been triggered the Dursleys would probably be so appalled and horrified that they’d try to trigger her back into something resembling a normal human being. The Dursleys were, on the whole, very anti-parahuman.

 

Not enough to give her a room, a decent breakfast, or spare her the belt but enough to scream at her about orphanages and triggering if they were feeling particularly nervous. That and make it a point to make sure Diddykins had as worry free a childhood as possible lest he trigger. All this good work being undone, of course, when Dudley spent around a year courting death and disaster in order to trigger but Lily supposed it was no harm no foul given that he was still very much in the land of the bloated living.

 

More, what Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

 

And for Lily it’d been more or less beside the point as, she’d discovered relatively early, that somehow, she’d triggered without ever realizing she’d triggered. Or, at least, she thought she had.

 

There was no single moment, certainly nothing Lily would have classified as triggering, just slowly but surely, she noticed that the rules of reality didn’t seem to apply to her the same way they did to Dudley or anyone else.

 

It wasn’t anything so obvious as precognition, super strength, mastery, or anything like that either but… It was everything, it seemed everything she put her mind to, anything she tried, would suddenly be possible.

 

Her only limit that she had found so far was her own imagination.

 

So, by the time she’d entered public school and started hearing things about The Order, the Death Eaters, or even Scion the golden man and first parahuman and hero she had felt a sort of numb acceptance that before she had even realized it, before she could even remember, Lily had been a parahuman.

 

And that was that.

 

So, Lily didn’t think about villains or heroes, didn’t think about costumes or codenames, she’d just gone to school and kept her head down wondering if being parahuman meant she was supposed to well… do something.

 

She supposed she could help Dumbledore rid the streets of parahuman crime, and it’d certainly get her out of the Dursleys at the very least. Except… the wards were very strict about parent involvement and permission, and unless there was very clear evidence of Lily’s abuse then she’d still be stuck with the Dursleys.

 

Which, you’d think the fact that someone triggered at all would get them out of any home, but Dumbledore was all about being a family man according to his interviews in The Prophet. So, unless she showed up with a nasty collection of bruises and Dudders and Uncle Vernon in a particularly dimwitted mood Lily would still be stuck with the Dursleys.

 

And even if she did show up to the wards and didn’t have to go back the interviews…

 

Curly haired, buck toothed, eleven-year-old Book Master and gangly, ginger, Chess Wizard were in The Prophet every other week for interviews about their caped escapades and battles against Death Eater juniors like the dweeby Silver Dragon, hulking dimwitted Crab, and goonish looking Gargoyle.

 

Lily personally thought those interviews sounded like the worst thing in the world, not to mention spending her time beating up snot nosed brats who called themselves Dragon, Crab, and Gargoyle.

 

Plus, they never actually won, not even against Death Eater cadets. Voldemort and company had been running rampant through London for ages, before Lily was even born, and even though people said Dumbledore was the one and only man who could stand against him as Phoenix, Lily just thought eleven plus years was a long time to be doing something about anything.

 

People didn’t want to admit it, but honestly, London was a hop skip and a jump away from being Brockton bloody Bay. Sure, they didn’t have the skin-head gangs beating the shit out of the Asian gangs to be combined with the god knew what gangs but the human police were useless, the parahuman heroes in The Order were… well, whatever they were, and the Death Eaters were competent enough to survive but incompetent enough to just take over the damn city already.

 

Plus, she really wasn’t sure what it was the Death Eaters wanted. Oh, they said they wanted to eliminate non-parahuman kind or else trigger everyone into being parahuman in a rant worthy of Magneto, but that was ridiculous, and she always had the feeling Voldemort was saying it to just say it.

 

Sure, she believed curly haired, sycophant, and all around femme fatale The Strange believed each and every word but their ring leader… Well, Lily suspected he just wanted power and was slowly but surely going about his way to get it.

 

Just… painfully slowly.

 

Point being, Lily had kept herself to herself, idly wondering if she should leave Surrey and the Dursleys but not quite finding the energy to do it.

 

Unfortunately, the Dursleys had decided for once to bring Lily into London with them and Dudley as they decided to stick it to the parahuman man and visit the zoo for Dudders’ birthday. Almost predictably, given London was basically a warzone, those no good, dirty rotten, parahuman gangsters had blown up half the zoo with The Order not far behind.

 

Which left Lily in the middle of a battle of good versus evil, with both good and evil pinned to the ground by Lily’s profound irritation. She’d been having such a nice conversation with a boa constrictor, probably the nicest she’d had in a damn long time, and for once she’d managed to lose Dudley and the rest of the Dursleys and they’d kill her if their day was ruined by dying.

 

Well, by almost dying, if they were already dead she supposed it was moot point.

 

Anyways, these weren’t even the real sharks, she was stuck with the Golden Trio and baby Death Eaters going at it.

 

“Lily?!” the Chess Master balked, freckles looking even less intimidating in person than he did in the papers and on the tele, “Like the flower? Your cape name is a bloody flower?!”

 

“And?” she asked in turn as she shoved her hands into her pockets and continued to survey the damage.

 

To her right, strewn about in various embarrassing positions on the pavement, were the budding heroes of this current golden parahuman age: The Golden Trio. You had curly haired librarian in training Book Master, gangly ginger and swiftly growing red Chess Wizard, and of course the last and least timid and out of shape Golden Lad who looked as if he was torn between whimpering or else swooning in terror.

 

To her left were the Death Eaters in training and future scourge of the Britons. You had Silver Dragon looking as if he was trying and failing to maintain his dignity as he was trapped to the earth, hulking oversized Crab, and lean yet somehow still hulking Gargoyle.

 

In between the groups were piles of rubble, one escaped Brazillian boa constrictor on his way to the motherland with Lily’s blessing, and the lost dignity of what had once been the great city of London.

 

Once they had stood proud through trial and fire that had not come from overpowered eleven-year-olds.

 

“And you’re not even dressed as a cape! You’re in civvies and where’s your mask?!” Chess Wizard seemed personally offended by her frayed sweater and shorts as well as her clearly visible face.

 

Which, sure, you were supposed to go masked before you embarked on your vigilante endeavors, but Lily hadn’t exactly asked to be caught in the middle of this. Plus, capes tended to look, well…

 

Silver Dragon was dressed as what he undoubtedly thought was a tasteful silver ensemble with a gilded decorative mask complete with precious jewels, but Lily thought it made him look a bit like a well-endowed disco ball that hadn’t had the taste to realize it should have been put away in 1979.

 

Crab and Gargoyle were unimaginatively and impractically dressed as a giant crab and a giant hulking gargoyle respectively. Lily honestly was a little surprised, given how little effort they were putting into this, that they hadn’t just named themselves Goon One and Goon Two.

 

Or just have them replaced by some tinker’s androids given that it looked like the Silver Dragon could more than afford that kind of tinker tech.

 

Book Master was dressed in a fearsome dusty old cape with wild hair blowing everywhere, undoubtedly looking exactly like what she thought a fearsome adventurous librarian looked like.

 

Chess Wizard was in clothing that looked like he wished it was dapper and expensive but was as second hand as Lily’s own clothes and a bit too brightly colored given he made a living of doing epic battle with heinous villains.

 

As for Golden Lad, well, she wasn’t even going to touch Golden Lad except to say that she wouldn’t be surprised if his gay color-blind uncle had picked out his superhero get up.

 

Needless to say, their outfits combined with most of the cape outfits Lily had seen did not leave her particularly inspired.

 

“Chess Wizard, don’t be rude!” Book Master hissed to her companion, looking like she dearly wished she could whack him across the back of the head. Unfortunately for them all, Lily still had them pinned down.

 

“Um, Lily, out of curiosity, what is your power?” Book Master asked, “I’m sure you know I’m a tinker, and Chess Wizard here is—”

 

“Really, Book Master?!” Chess Wizard balked, ears now turning a shade of red that was almost purple, “You going to give her all our secrets?”

 

“Honestly, Chess Wizard, I’m sure she has the ability to read, and the basics of our powers are all over the—”

 

“Well we don’t need to bloody hand it out to her!”

 

As the pair descended into rather loud bickering Golden Lad seemed to shrink further and further into himself. He looked a bit like a sad little daffodil, wilting beneath the cold winds of winter, having failed to have the dignity and foresight to die in autumn as all others of his ilk did.

 

“For once I’m with the weasel,” Silver Dragon drawled, and it really was a drawl, the kind of arrogant slurring of words and tone that one expected from the absurdly wealthy.

 

“Shut it, Ferret!” Chess Wizard, otherwise known as Weasel, spat back almost on instinct much to the rolling of Silver Dragon’s, otherwise known as Ferret, silver eyes.

 

“Look, I don’t know what you guys are up to and I don’t particularly care,” Lily started, but this unfortunately seemed to offend both parties. Quite the achievement, Lily personally thought, because as far as the papers said the pair never agreed on anything.

 

“We’re saving your blooming ass!”

 

“Oh, were you, Weasel?”

 

“I said shut if Ferret!”

 

“And I said that I really don’t care,” Lily said, speaking over them all and willing them into silence (something which, judging by the widening of their eyes, terrified them beyond mortal comprehension, “Now, I have a very busy day today filled with… Well, finding wherever the hell my extended family disappeared in the chaos. What is not in my schedule is playing janitor to capes junior! So, please, crawl back to wherever the hell it is you came from.”

 

With a deep breath in and a deep breath out Lily released them both from the earth and from her imposed silence. For a moment both groups shuffled awkwardly, arranged prepubescent limbs into something resembling a fighting stance. However, the mood was apparently quite dead as soon enough the stances were abandoned and Silver Dragon was hissing towards them in warning as he backtracked out of Lily’s sight, “You wait until I tell my father about this, Trio!”

 

Lily felt her eyebrows raise, pointed towards his retreating figure, and couldn’t help but ask, “Did he just threaten to tattle to his daddy?”

 

“Yeah, Dragon does that,” Chess Wizard said with a sniff as he brushed off his clothes, “He’s a git.”

 

Well, there were gits and then there was whatever lowly state Silver Dragon was in that allowed him to seriously make threats to tell his father how caped crusaders beat the shit out of him in the zoo.

 

Lily felt a pang of sympathetic embarrassment for whatever poor bastard Silver Dragon’s father was.

 

“So,” for the first time Golden Lad spoke.

 

Golden was a bit of a misnomer, the boy was mousier than Book Master. His hair was a rather nondescript brown, his eyes an equally unremarkable brown, and his face rounded and pasty. The only thing golden about him was his sparkling outfit, which seemed to be overcompensating for its owner.

 

“So,” he started again, painfully awkwardly, “I, um, you’re a cape?”

 

“I suppose,” Lily said with a shrug, “I honestly haven’t gotten into the whole cape business.”

 

“So, you’re really not a villain then!” Book Master said in delight, “Oh, I had hoped not but then I wasn’t too sure and you know there’s not that many capes our age (which I suppose is very good as it means not too many of us are triggering this young and—”

 

“Breathe, Book Master,” Chess Wizard said contemptuously to his female partner, “So, if you’re not a cape, then what the blooming hell do you want?”

 

“I kind of wanted to go to the zoo,” Lily said rather dully as she took in the destruction and the further distant explosions, “But I guess that’s right out.”

 

“Right,” Golden Lad said, “Sorry about that, we honestly have no idea why they’d attack a place like this. It’s not really their—”

 

Golden Lad promptly shut up, flushing, looking like his hand had been caught in the cookie jar. Which, Lily supposed he had just told her more than he should have given the wide eyed expressions of the other triad members.

 

“Well,” Golden Lad started, “Well, if you want to be a hero—”

 

“You should really join the wards!” Book Master cut in for him, immediately talking over the diminutive boy, “Oh, I know triggering is awful and that it’s not easy but it really does get so much better when you’re with others and using your powers for good! And you seem really really powerful, and all over the place actually, you’re not just a master but you’re—”

 

“Book Master!” Chess Wizard cried out in frustration as well as very genuine anger.

 

“Right,” Book Master said flushing, “Well, I think it’d be good, for you and for London. If you bring your parents over—”

 

“Parents are dead,” Lily interjected before Book Master could get any further, “And the relatives I do have left don’t exactly support the cause.”

 

That was, Lily thought dully, if she actually had relatives left. But even if she did she’d just go home and…

 

And then what?

 

Remain as she was until the age of eighteen when the Dursleys threw her out of the house with aplomb? Using her gifts, her truly profound gifts if her vague understanding was correct, for petty parlour tricks to get her out of chores? Was this really her destiny?

 

Or was destiny here in a zoo slapping her in the face?

 

“You know what, I don’t have any relatives,” Lily said slowly, because the Dursleys would not be upset to see the back of her, no they’d gratefully allow her to slink into the world of parahumans, “I would be glad to join your superhero cabal.”

 

“The Order,” Golden Lad quietly corrected her, but it was with a smile, a small hesitant grin at the idea of making another superpowered friend.

**Author's Note:**

> For jaderoller on tumblr who asked for a fusion of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and "Worm". As for what happens from here on out, Lily's adventures in The Order's Scottish headquarters Hogwarts, well I'll leave that to your imagination for the time being.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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